Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. U.S Case Brief

Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. U.S., 251 U.S. 385, 40 S.Ct. 182 (1920)

FACTS: Silverthorne (the individual who owned the company) was cited for contempt for refusing to produce books and documents before the Grand Jury.

Silverthorne had been indicted and arrested. While Silverthorne (and his father) were detained, a U.S. Marshal “without a shadow of authority,” went to their company and seized all books and papers held there. The papers were seized pursuant to an invalid warrant, and a new warrant was drafted based on information in the documents seized. The Court ordered the original documents returned, and then issued a subpoena for the documents. The Silverthornes refused to produce the documents, arguing that the Court was benefiting from the original unlawful seizure, as without that seizure, they would not have been able to draft a new warrant for the materials.

ISSUE: Is it permissible for the government to benefit from an unlawful act?

HOLDING: No

DISCUSSION: The Court agreed that it “reduces the Fourth Amendment to a form of words” by allowing the government to use the knowledge obtained unlawfully. The Court agreed that “[I]f knowledge of them (the evidence) is gained from an independent source they may be proved like any others, but the knowledge gained by the Government’s own wrong cannot be used by it in the way proposed.” In other words, if the government can show it could have obtained the needed information from another source, it may be permitted to keep the evidence, but absent that proof, the evidence will be inadmissible.